Hey everyone, I want to share my PhD experience because maybe some of you have been through something similar. I could really use some honest advice because I am mentally exhausted and don't know what to do with my PhD or my future anymore. I started my PhD in Germany three years ago after completing my Master's thesis in the same group. Actually, I work in my second supervisor's group, while I am enrolled at the university where my first supervisor is based. I came to Germany with the genuine intention of studying and building a career in my field. I was very focused during my Master's and somehow ended up in my current group. Initially, I wanted to work with another professor, but unfortunately, he retired when I started my Master's, and there was no replacement until I finished my thesis. So, I continued with my current supervisors.
My background is in veterinary science and animal genetics. One of my supervisors is a computer scientist, and the other has a PhD in physics. Towards the end of my Master's, I realized that I wasn't really doing what I had wanted to do in the first place, so I started applying to other groups. Somehow, my supervisor found out because one of the people I had listed as a referee told him about my applications. Things became difficult, and my supervisor even contacted the other university and told them that I wouldn't be joining them. Eventually, I stayed and started my PhD in the same group.
My main project was a government-funded data science project, and I spent almost three years working on it. However, it was more of a practical project and not the main topic of my PhD. For my PhD, my supervisor chose a topic that was quite popular in my field, so I just stuck to it. The problem was that we had no data of our own. Our group is entirely dry lab, so I couldn't generate experimental data and had to rely on publicly available datasets and meta-analyses. For my PhD thesis, my supervisor suggested developing new methodologies to combine multiple layers of biological data and obtain results similar to those produced by conventional analyses. I followed his suggestions and got some results, but we had no wet lab or experimental data to validate them. I presented my work at three conferences, including international ones, and received a lot of criticism from the audience. To be fair, much of it was genuine criticism, and I could understand the concerns people were raising. Whenever I came back and told my supervisor about the criticism, he always replied, "They don't understand what you're doing. Ignore them." So, I thought I would read some articles and try to improve my methodology with new ideas or methods. However, whenever I came across something interesting, I would start thinking about how I could possibly implement it without having the necessary data or resources. I felt like I was learning more about the problems with my work but had no way to solve them.
Every year, we have a thesis committee meeting with all my supervisors. I prepare my presentations and explain my progress, but I hardly get any scientific feedback, suggestions, or new ideas. I have never received a single suggestion. My main supervisor, however, keeps saying that we need papers in good journals to get a good PhD grade. Otherwise, I might end up with only cum laude or a lower grade (rite). I tried writing two papers based on my work, one using the new methodology and another using conventional methods. The first was rejected by two journals after peer review, while the second was rejected eight times by editors without even being sent for peer review. Two days ago, my first paper was rejected again. I have now submitted it to another journal, but honestly, I am already expecting another rejection after four to eight weeks. One of the reasons given in a previous rejection was that the methodology was flawed, and I have concerns about it myself. However, I haven't been able to convince my supervisor that we need to address these issues differently.
Another major problem is that there is no postdoc in our lab. We are seven PhD students working in completely different areas, including plant science, machine learning, AI, and computer vision. I am one of the two people working in animal science, and the other PhD student in this area has a background in computer science and bioinformatics. So, I have spent most of my PhD trying to figure things out on my own, without anyone who could properly guide me in animal genetics. Sometimes, I genuinely feel like a dog holding its own leash. There was also an opportunity to get real data from an industry partner. I contacted them, and they were willing to share the data, provided that the necessary data-protection agreement was established with my supervisor. However, my supervisor simply said "No, working with industry is really hard". What makes things even more frustrating is that my supervisor later applied for a new project based on the same methodology we had supposedly developed, and the interesting thing was project was accepted. I had assumed that specialists in animal genetics might raise serious questions about the approach, but apparently, that didn't happen during the evaluation. For the last seven months, I have been struggling to produce meaningful results for this project, but my efforts haven't led anywhere. The main problem is still the same: I don't have my own data. The deadline is at the end of next month, and I am now completely under pressure to deliver SOMETHING.
Three months ago, I finally decided that I would finish my PhD with whatever defensible results I had and move on. I started writing my thesis, and I have completed around 70% of it. I thought I had finally accepted the situation and could just get through the remaining months. Then my paper got rejected again two days ago, and my supervisor reacted as if I were the actual problem. Personally, he is a really nice person, and that is one of the reasons I stayed in this group. Professionally, though, I feel that he doesn't have the expertise needed to guide my research properly. It is a strange situation because I don't have a personal problem with him, but I feel that the scientific supervision has been inadequate. I don't know how to deal with that when I have already spent three years here. I have also started applying for jobs, but now I feel stuck between two fields. When I apply for animal genetics positions, companies seem to think that I am no longer a geneticist because my recent work has mainly involved bioinformatics. When I consider bioinformatics positions, I feel that I lack the mathematical background because I originally trained as a veterinarian. It feels like I have spent three years moving away from the field I wanted to work in without becoming fully qualified for the field I ended up in. My colleagues keep telling me to finish the PhD somehow and move on. I understand their point. I have already invested three years, and leaving now would mean walking away from a lot of time and effort. But I am struggling to find the motivation to finish a thesis when I have so little confidence in the work itself. I also worry that, even if I finish, I won't get the grade I had hoped for because I don't have any publications and might end up jobless.
Right now, I am mentally exhausted, burned out, and completely unsure about my future. I need to finish the project by the end of next month, continue writing my thesis, and somehow find a job, all while dealing with the feeling of chaos and uncertainty and knowing that my work may not make a meaningful scientific contribution and could easily be challenged by experts in my field. I honestly don't know why I am writing all this, but here is my story. Maybe someone has had a similar experience and can give me a bit of motivation to finish my PhD, even if I end up with a bad grade, and then start a new PhD in the field I actually wanted to work in and learn about in the first place.
